I haven't played a game of Horizon Wars in over a year, similarly I haven't played in the New Charon campaign in over a year. Time to get back into it. I had avoided it because my Sci Fi miniatures took some damage in the summer of 2019 from the kids who used them during Activities Week.
I have two forces of 14 Presence.
Neo Christian Union
2Pt Command Mech with the "Short" range upgrade, which removes 6 from the range to target.
3Pt Heavy Cav. x2 I used Command Resources to upgrade the D stat from 1 to 2. (the dice you roll to attempt to cancel incoming fire)
2Pt Light Cav.
1Pt Light Infantry x4
New Charon Militia
2Pt Command Mech
2Pt mechs x2
3Pt Heavy Cav. I used Command Resources to upgrade the D from 1 to 2, A from 5 to 6 and F from 5 to 6. It is a beast.
1Pt Light Infantry x5
I played a few things possibly wrong.
1. Not sure if I am allowed to spend Command Resources on multiple things on the same vehicle.
2. When units entered the board from reserves, I think you are meant to spend an action getting them on there, but I didn't.
It had been a slog. Months and months of mopping up pockets of resistance. Natalya Phillips was sick of it. These seemingly pointless engagements were wearing on the soul. Too many friends gone. Hoping for an end to this conflict, Phillips had been tasked with another mopping up operation. The big foreheads were still trying to work out who these people were, and what they wanted.
A small force of invaders were holding a village beyond the Reaches. Phillips' job was to get in and smash them before they had a chance to regroup and push closer to the sector capitol.
Advancing in order to flank the village, the heavily upgraded militia tank came under some ineffective fire from the infantry garrisoned in the buildings.
Having shown themselves, Natalya in her CSMP and some militamen opened fire, but the protection of the hab held out enough. Garrisoning a building had proved a good tactical move.
After taking some fire, the infantry returned fire to great effect, catching them in the open...
...causing them to break and run. Natalya found herself holding the flank on her own.
"Get more support up here!" Natalya yelled down the comms.
The NCU command mech opened fire at Natalya, but was unable to cause any damage, thankfully.
At this point I decided that I would re-set the activation dice at the end of each round. So the NCM have all their actions, then I give them their dice back to enable them to react. This is probably the correct way of doing it anyway.
Natalya advanced up to a thicket of trees and opened fire on the same infantry. A hail of rocket fire launched across the open ground...
...tearing the infantry unit apart.
So far I have rolled a lot of critical hits. If you roll a natural 12 then the attacker gets to place the damage. Light infantry have an A value of 1, when it hits 0 the unit is destroyed. Thus, rolling a critical hit against light infantry is an instant kill.
Advancing up the flank, Malcolm Kennett opened fire on the other enemy infantry squad. Rockets smashed the building, and tore holes in the squad to the point where they broke.
Militia reinforcements arrive to help support Natalya and to cover the centre.
"Open up on the village," ordered Natalya to Dunn Harrison, tank commander. Dunn responded by putting a couple of rounds through the central building. The collapse killed enough soldiers to make that squad combat ineffective.
Just some perspective, this is the dice. Tank rolled enough for two hits. the three 12s meant the infantry had to roll three 12s with four dice to save themselves. Amazingly they managed to roll two of them. But not enough.
A long shot, but a good one. The NCU commander fired at Kennett's mech, damaging the legs again.
"When am I going to catch a break? Back off to the quartermasters when this is all over," said Kennett to no-one in particular.
Armoured reinforcements arrived and began pounding at Dunn and his crew. He took a few hits, some minor damage to the tracks, but nothing too serious.
"We need to press the attack," called Natalya over the comms, and began directing her forces forwards.
In game terms, we have finished turn two. The defenders lose if the turn ends with them having two or fewer combat effective units on table. The defenders win if they have four or more, whose Presence is worth double that of their advanced force. They need 10 on table to win.
Natalya and the infantry exchange fire with the command mech, seriously damaging it, immobilizing it even. But it could still fire, and was going to pose a threat to that flank until it could be completely obliterated.
Dunn and Kennett opened fire on the enemy armour, causing significant damage, but not doing enough to kill it outright. It could still fight on.
At this point, the militia have ended their side of turn 3. The NCU are getting reinforcements that will bring their total presence on board to 11, meaning they will technically win the engagement unless the militia can kill 2 presence worth of units. It felt a bit gamey.
Dunn reacted to the NCU armour manuvering. His shot rang true but only caused minor damage again.
In an exchange of fire, Dunn found himself having to button up. "Sir, things aren't going so well here," he reported back to Natalya.
The NCU armour then rounded the rocky outcrop and opened fire on Kennett, although caused no damage. Kennett would live to fight another day, although his mech would need some work again.
The NCU commander, unable to move, took fire and fired upon Natalya. This exchange did little, but was successful in holding up the militia attack even further.
NCU reinforcements entered the fray to further delay the militia advance. Natalya had to call for further reinforcements and needed to order her supporting infantry to dig in in a defensive line and wait.
"We will hold them here, and wait it out," she ordered. "Central is sending down some heavier guns to help us dislodge this lot."
And this is how it ended. I mean, the NCU took more casualties. But the militia didn't advance quickly enough nor do enough damage. I was sad not to get the chance to use my smoke plumes that seem often attached to StuG IIIs. I look forward to playing again. Although I will admit, having played Battlegroup, I miss the idea of pinning units, as opposed to "hit point" sort of systems. Unless I further abstract what the stats of units are while making the narrative up?
See you next time.
